|
Metroid: Other M | 
| From: Nintendo
Category: Video Games
Department: Electronics
List Price: $49.99
Buy Used: $31.99
as of 9/8/2010 09:45 EDT details
You Save: $18.00 (36%)
New (32) Used (11) Collectible (2) from $31.99
Seller: Warehouse Deals
Rating:  54 reviews
Sales Rank: 21
Platform: Nintendo Wii
Genre: adventure_games
ESRB: Teen
Media: Video Game
Edition: Standard
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Number Of Items: 1
Batteries Included: No
Operating System: Nintendo Wii
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: RVL-R30P-UKV
Model: RVLPR3OE
UPC: 045496901912
EAN: 0045496901912
ASIN: B002BSC4ZS
Publication Date: August 2010
Shipping: Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
| |
| Features:
| • | Metroid - Other M takes the best elements of 1st-person and 3rd-person gaming to create a seamless blend between game play, story-telling and dynamic cinematography, that feels like a movie you can control; you can hold the Wii Remote controller sideways while navigating and battling in 3rd-person; however, at any moment, you can switch immediately to Wii Remote pointer controls to examine and explore the environments in 1st-person perspective | | • | Metroid fans know more about Samus' suits and weapons than they do about what drives her; that's about to change, the story begins immediately following the events of Super Metroid, when a baby Metroid gave its life to protect Samus, with voice acting and a rich story, you will learn the engaging back-story of Samus as she weaves through an action-packed adventure aboard the Bottle Ship, a decommissioned space facility; as she hurtles into this new adventure, Samus will encounter her first men | | • | The development of Metroid - Other M is an exciting collaboration between Nintendo's Yoshio Sakamoto and Team Ninja; Sakamoto was the director of Super Metroid in 1994; Team Ninja is the renowned action developer of Ninja Gaiden. Metroid - Other M pairs Sakamoto's expert level design and exploratory focus of the classic Metroid series with Team Ninja's signature stylish, no-holds-barred action |
|
| Accessories:
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
For decades, Samus Aran has been known as one of the first female protagonists in video games, and one of the most enigmatic. Having traded her haunted past for the solitary life of a bounty hunter, Samus finally tells her own tale in this revealing, personal story of her failings, her flaws and ultimately her motivation. Metroid: Other M is an unprecedented collaboration that blends the slick, action-packed production of the world-renowned Team Ninja development team with the game design talents of the creators of the original Metroid. Metroid: Other M is a dramatic new direction for a legendary franchise and a bold new blend between cinematics, storytelling and the best in interactive entertainment.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 54
 mixes awesomeness with mushiness September 8, 2010
Cortney Cameron (Durham, NC)
Previously, Nintendo made a habit of keeping main characters (like Samus and Link) speechless, which gave the player free reign in imagining the character's personality. With Metroid: Other M, Nintendo broke that tradition and promised us an inside glimpse into the mind of bounty hunter Samus Aran, largely via internal monologues over lengthy cut-scenes.
In a perfect version of Other M, this story-driven technique might make a deeply inspiring game. Unfortunately, in this iteration, Samus's new-found personality only disappoints. From terrible voice acting to a terrible personality, longtime Samus fans--especially female gamers for whom Samus was one of few non-sexualized totally bad-ass female main characters--will cringe at this sloppy rewriting of a beloved character.
When you play as Samus, you still feel totally bad-ass blowing baddies to kingdom come--but then a fifteen-minute cut-scene comes rolling in to ruin it. You see, these cut-scenes want to show you Samus's "emotional" side.
[spoiler]
The best example of this is her encounter with Ridley. The cut-scene--in which Samus literally has a breakdown upon sighting her arch-nemesis (whom she has defeated numerous times)--ruins suspension of disbelief and pulls the player out of the game. As a bounty hunter, Samus must track down and defeat horrifying monsters. Her profession requires cool fearlessness in the face of the unknown and the unexpected. If the sight of a recurring enemy paralyzes her and compromises her survival, she needs to switch jobs.
[/spoiler]
Indeed, it becomes difficult to correlate bad-ass Samus with whiny Samus--but if like me, you pretend that parts of the cut-scenes never existed, you can get through the game with minimal groans, because despite its mushiness, the game offers great action and superb graphics.
In a surprising turn, Other M does away with the Nunchuk; instead, a la Super Mario Bros. Wii, you hold the remote sideways and use the D-pad to move. I quickly acclimated to this control scheme and I appreciated its simplicity. Unfortunately, though, the player has no control of the camera, and this can cause for some awkward moments.
I had fun with the dodge mechanism. Tapping the D-pad right before an attack causes Samus to dash out of the way, and if you press the fire button during the dodge, her laser fully charges. After I mastered this technique, I really enjoyed playing dodge-and-shoot with enemies.
Correctly utilizing the dodge results in some very awesome finishing moves, wherein Samus ruthlessly manhandles baddies into submission and then blasts the living daylights out of them.
In fact, as far as game play goes, I can only complain about the missile mechanism. Switching to first-person view--required in order to shoot missiles--renders Samus motionless and vulnerable, which causes problems in the many bosses that require missiles.
A lot of people took issue with the power-up system in Other M. Instead of going the usual route wherein Samus gets damaged and loses all her upgrades, Samus starts out with all of her upgrades, but won't use them until her ex-commander authorizes it. In my opinion, this just causes eye rolls; critics said the set-up further stresses Samus's submissiveness.
For average gamers, Other M offers about 12 hours of play; I adopted a slow place and 100%'ed it in 17 hours. Hidden items add a very enjoyable challenge (I felt victorious after finding difficult item locations), but after completing this task, Other M retains little appeal. My copy has already taken a trip to the marketplace.
Overall, I recommend this game as a fun and worthwhile ride. However, as a Metroid title, it feels out-of-place and out-of-character.
Fun Game but presentation needs work September 7, 2010
shadowed heart (United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Wow, I'm not even sure how to rank this game to be honest. On one hand I do not see anything that stands out in this game that I'm glad Team Ninja brought to the Metroid franchise, but on other hand it is still captivating me to play it through. Outside of this and StarCraft 2 I cannot remember the last game that captivated me enough to finish it. For example... I have over 9 DAYS playtime on Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer and I can't remember how much on Bad Company 2, but I still haven't finished the single player campaign for either MW2 or BC2.
And I think that is why there is such a disparity between the reviews on this game. Just like the Prime series bucked the trend of the traditional 2-D Metroid games going into a First Person Action Adventure Shooter, Metroid: Other M bucks the trend into a 3rd Person Action Adventure Shooter. I was looking forward to the mixing of 2D and 3D, but the majority of the game is played in 3rd Person mode in 2.5-D space with minor stints of FPS. For the most part I found the switch into FPS mode pretty painless as I was switching into FPS mode to scan areas for weak points looking for power-ups instinctively. And in this sense the game was almost too easy as the new scan mode automatically gravitates towards Points-of-Interest thus making looking for hidden power-ups much quicker. Though I will have to agree with other reviewers that when the game FORCES you into FPS mode to scan for something it gets annoying quick as the area it is looking for you to put the target on is very small. In some cases it is obvious (like rustling leaves) but in other cases it's just downright a test of patience (a specific bug in a group of bugs) which kind of resulted in a buzzkill for what could of been cool tension building moments. Poor delivery. But where the controls got really frustrating is where I felt I needed it the most ...in boss battles. All of a sudden it was like the game refused to go into FPS mode and I'd lose seconds of time trying to get into FPS mode to fire a missle and many times I'd have to dodge and re-try again. I don't know if the Wii/Game had an issue trying to process thick battle moments with recognizing the switch in Wii-mote direction, but that is by far my biggest complaint with the game. As it made some battles really annoying. I also don't like only being able to fire missles while locked on (in FPS mode), thus also being forced to fire missles when locked on. Sometimes I just wanted to lock on the enemy and fire a charged beam shot ...oh well, lame but at least refilling missles was quick and painless.
On the good side, you CAN dodge while in FPS mode. You have two methods actually - 1) flick the wii-mote, or 2) switch back Third-Person Mode and press a direction on the D-pad. I prefer method 2 as I usually wait for a break in enemy fire and find a better angle to attack from.
Outside of the switching to FPS mode during battles there really isn't much I can complain about when it comes to the combat system. All the previous Metroid games have used a very simple combat system - Run, Jump, Shoot. That's it. But it works! Other M introduces finishing moves, dodge moves and counter-attacks. Yet in the end, it still boils down to a very simple combat system as non of the special moves require any complicated movements and they work very smoothly in combat. The charge beam is your friend ...and thankfully you start off with it.
The G4 review paints this picture that Samus is some helpess little girl relying on THE MAN and can only move when he says so. Right. The truth is Samus has a bond with her previous superior officer (that honestly many people develop) that compels her to fall back under his command for this mission. This bond is so common it is more cliche' than the rest of the story is, yet the G4 review treats it as if the game is treading on un-tapped snow. Not only that but the G4 review never mentioned how the Marines welcome Samus back with open arms and never complain they have to work with her. At any rate... there is nothing wrong with the concept, but the delivery fails. While there is technically nothing wrong with how they chose for Samus to unlock her powers - the delivery fails to make the gamer believe it. The favorite example every review chooses is the timing of Varia Suit unlock. In all the previous Metroids the Varia Suit is almost always one of the hardest upgrades to unlock and you ALWAYS have to go through some Lava room that causes Heat Damage to you simply by being in the room ...thus making you appreciate the Varia Suit when you finally get it. The problem with Other M is you already have it but its not activated until authorized. End result... poor delivery. Honestly it would have been better for Samus to receive this upgrade from defeating the boss, rather than it being authorized just before him. It wouldn't have been the only upgrade Samus received from defeating an encounter, and you wouldn't have that nagging doubt... why wasn't it authorized before this?! So yeah.. like I said, it comes down to... poor delivery. If you can get past 'how' you get the upgrades and just worry about 'when' the poor delivery begins to become a non-issue. Because you actually get some of the upgrades a lot earlier than you would have in some of the previous Metroid titles.
When Metroid decided to go to FPS with the Prime series I knew the days of many wasted hours shooting/bombing every square inch of the walls/ceilings/floors were gone thus reducing the exploratory (masochist) fun of the game. In the first Metroid you litterally could get the Screw Attack (typically the final upgrade) as something like the 3rd or 4th upgrade if you knew all the secret passage ways. You could even bypass Kraid and Ridley if you wanted to. The Metroid Prime series made the game more linear, but I still found the Metroid Prime series (especially the 1st Prime) to not only be some of the best in the series but I'd also put the 1st Metroid Prime in my own personal Top 5 games of all time. The Prime series proved the franchise doesn't have to suffer by making it more linear than series was used to, but it was all about presentation.
Speaking of that presentation, I find the graphics to be extremely beautiful in Other M for many parts ...and in other parts I find it to be lacking (lots of jaggies) or extremely cheezy. (Samus looks AWESOME ...but the Marines look like a Cartoon Network production) Retro Studios did a far better job at being consistent. In Metroid Prime I could go to any random out of the way corner, look behind a bush and see iridescent beetles crawling over fallen luminescent leaves. I mean who else but me thinks to look there?? And who thinks to even spend time putting that stuff there??? Retro did. In many ways Other M did a valiant job and I think (outside of the Marines) many people will be impressed by the graphics in this game. And when I play this game I wonder how good this game would look on my PS3 or 360 because it really does look good. The music (or lack thereof) I have to say disappoints me. In most of the game it was too understated to the point I had to pay special attention to even know if there was music to complain about. And in other parts it would finally ramp up and sound like a Metroid game to make it seem like something was about to happen. As a Metroid fan the iconic music has always been extremely important to me, as it made searching every room for the 200th time looking for power-ups and secret passageways more bearable. To the point I was annoyed Other M didn't include the victory music when you find a power-up laying around. That's my issue and preconcieved notion from previous games so I'm not knocking down the score based on that.
I am knocking down the score of the game for the not quite so seamless transition from 3rd Person to FPS during battles. And even though I personally don't see anything wrong in concept for the storyline or Samus' charactization... I find the presentation to be lacking. While I loved the Prime series, I will also say I think it was time for a change. And for the most part I really like the fast paced, yet simplistic approach, that Team Ninja gave to the series. I really like the 3rd Person 2.5-D mode the best - but it leaves me wanting Nintendo to remake Super Metroid (complete with all the previous secret passageways and maybe even new ones) ...thus leaving me confused on this game. It's great, it's fun, it's almost reminiscent of the old Metroid games but only to point to where I want the old ones re-made with current technology ...even if they stayed 2-D. I will say that if I reviewed this game my first 1-2hrs I had with the game this review would be completely different and probably would have gotten 2 stars, or at best 3. But something about it kept me playing which tells me its a pretty good game since I usually lose interest quickly. This game DOES reward you for scouring the rooms/halls looking for power-ups which I think greatly affected my change in opinion of the game as I played through it. If you're unsure, try renting it or watch some gameplay on YouTube - KrazyBrawl has his whole playthrough recorded. But I can easily see why this is a hit or miss title for many. If they turn this into a series they need to revamp their presentation (both story and powerup unlocks), add the iconic music back in, put in hidden passageways that link from 1 room to another ...or even span multiple rooms like the original Metroid, improve the map system (go back to the Prime map system), bring back bomb climbing, and make more rooms that are bigger, taller with more side rooms/tunnels to give you a better sense of the world you're traversing through.
 Why does everyone hate this game!?!? September 7, 2010
Lord Finesse
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
Metroid Other M combines the old school difficulty with the contemporary spit-and-polish to create a difficult and rewarding experience.
The game is hard as nails and quite engaging, two qualities that have addicted me to previous titles in the franchise and other games such as Fallout 3 and Bioshock. Other M will kill you several times a minute and you will run in circles for hours. The voice acting is dry and soulless. The story is very cliché as are the characters. Some of the control mechanics are insufferable such as concentration and the First Person sequences due to their unfeasibility and overall pointlessness.
However, the game is FUN. You will receive endless enjoyment from Matrix dodges and badass take-downs while exploring and exercising the game's high replay value for its horrendous item saturation. The puzzles are intriguing and different as are the enemies. While the weapons are overall the same from previous titles, they feel quite different and running in circles from a hideous monster to get in the next charged shot will keep you on the edge of your seat. The story is suspenseful and intelligent as are the philosophical questions posed thereby, such as "How far is too far when it comes to technology?"
Conclusively, Other M is the best Metroid game since Super Metroid or maybe the first Metroid Prime. It subscribes to the linearity of Metroid Fusion while still lending a great deal of freedom and eliminating much wandering confusion. Team Ninja certainly put the moves on the game formula in a way that die-hard fans will appreciate. Though a 3D game, Other M takes more gameplay elements from its 2D counterparts. The formula feels slick and is a must-have for any actual gamers. It's time Nintendo takes back its fan base and stomps the casual gamers and grandparents and soccer moms and little kids in the nuts.
Shaking up the series September 7, 2010
J. Bolton (El Cajon, CA United States)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Metroid: Other M is back with a new studio and a whole new experience. The new game has strayed away from the Prime gameplay and has gone back to a third person view. I wasn't too happy with the last Prime game released on the Wii, but Other M is a breath of fresh air. I didn't feel like I could write an honest review until I finished it so here I go.
The gameplay is one of the biggest changes to the franchise. The gamer is basically playing the game in the third person view now. The first person view is only used to target enemies or objects with missile. It is also used in certain times when the game forces the gamer to use to to scan an object. I have to admit at times I was getting frustrated because it wasn't easy to find what I was suppose to scan. Since the gamer is forced to fight most of the time in the third person view, this takes away targeting the enemies like the gamer did in Prime. When you get close enough to the enemy, the beam automatically targets the enemy for you. It is a little shaky because there were plenty of times when I shot at the enemy and the beam went straight by them. The gamer uses the control pad to dodge attacks now which works pretty good. Energy and missiles are now replenished by holding onto the A button and tilting the Wii remote. I really didn't care for this method. I liked the old method of killing enemies and getting replenished that way. The weapon upgrades weren't that exciting. Samus doesn't really upgrade her weapons and suit, she just hasn't given authorization by Adam yet to use them. It kind of takes away from the fun of finding the upgrades to her suit.
Another big change is the cut scenes and deeper storyline. The game takes place after Super Metroid(my favorite Metroid game by the way). They do a great job of explaining Samus' back story and making her seem more human. The voice overs for the characters are great. This is by far my favorite new part of the franchise. Did I mention when Samus takes off her suit she looks super hot with her long blonde hair.
Overall I think with some improvements the game could have gotten five stars. Hopefully the fix some of the problems and make the game longer for the next one.
Best game ever made September 7, 2010
an_honest_tradesman
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
I say that it's the best game ever made without hesitation. This game is pure fun, well ahead of its time, and a throwback to older Metroid games. I absolutely love the third person view and the first person alternate view. It's not hard to change views; in fact, it's easy and it's fun. I love exploring everything with the first person view. I generally do not like newer games, being a hard core gamer with old school tastes, but this game gets an A+ in my book. I don't mind Adam having to authorize the weapons. It's the same thing as not having acquired them in the old games. It's not fair to compare this game to Super Metroid, which is itself a masterpiece, because these games are on different systems and are nearly two decades apart. I love the storyline, love Samus, love morphing into the ball and rolling around in tunnels and air vents, and love firing missles. This is a once in a lifetime game!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 54
|
|
|
|
CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’ AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME. In affiliation with Amazon.com
Web Hosting & Domain Registration | |
